A tree grows in Brooklyn

a tree grows in Brooklyn by the window of my synagogue.


i look out the window standing by my place inside the synagogue and watch with it

the sun set on another Friday to usher in the shabbat that is now approaching.


the stillness of time passing by it as it stand by the window is only matched by its stiff

branches as it is indifferently whether it is a shabbat that now begins or shabbat that now

comes to an end though it witness both those events.


to me when the darkness of Friday night has come with it the light of the shabbat day has arrived.

to my tree all it is another wind that that blows and a light upon it leaves for a shadow to

fall. on sunrise to its west and at sunset to its east.


my tree in Brooklyn leaves blow with the change of every season and its trunk grows tall

with the passing of another year. as i , it grows old with the passage of time and the events that it has seen.

though i think of it, to most that pass it by it remains just an oak or perhaps maple tree on the street not to notice at all

do they stop and think what this tree means or even bother to see if it is even there at all.

yet to me it is where it was first planted on the side walk of our street, right under the

sign of our synagogue CIKB and still stands there to this very day and joins me every time i pray.